Saturday, November 22, 2008

"John Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an Americanfingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of his art. Fahey himself borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American music but also incorporated classical, Brazilian, Indian and abstract music into his eclectic œuvre. In characteristically witty fashion, he once said of his style: "How can I be folk? I'm from the suburbs you know." In 2003, he was ranked 35th in Rolling Stone's "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"."

Friday, November 21, 2008

"Though the album features ten songs, it more often plays like one massive piece with barely perceptible breaks. As engaging as the actual tunes can be, the disc's real strength is in its ability to sustain one consistent mood through its entire duration -- a slow-mo, almost languid waltz through bayous and shorelines. Even so, individual songs distinguish themselves from the haze -- "Everybody Daylight" starts the album with a supple rhythm while flute lines aim for the skies. "A River Could Be Loved" is willfully spare, tracing simple piano and organ tones across Rabob and Nabob's faintly echoed vocals. Gail West and Ann McCrary (two latter day members of the Staple Singers) lend their voices to tracks like "Friend of Time," giving the album's subtle gospel notes a distinguished feel. Brightblack's most affecting piece, though, is also the record's longest. Starting with woozy keys and lazy guitar, "Star Blanket River Child" hits a deep mainline and works it over, punctuating the engaging lope with tight horn bursts that add Technicolor effects to the band's genteel brush strokes.

Brightblack Morning Light combines a wealth of seemingly disparate musical strands into one potent, cohesive brew. Though Hughes and Shineywater skirt blues, funk, and modern psychedelic rock, what emerges never sounds like haphazard pastiche. Rather, stewed together long and slow, these familiar refrains emerge as the band's own singular and unmistakable sound -- powerful in its stark simplicity and graceful dedication to space, but played with gentle hands that never become overbearing. If anything, that's the album's only real weakness (besides the flower power) -- in pursuing such a lazy, hazy stream of thought for close to an hour, there's a tendency for the second half of the record to feel like a blur of nameless trees and rivers. Nonetheless, that dedication is always heartwarming, resulting in an album that seems perfectly suited for these heat-stroke days that we're stuck sweating through. Playing like Dusty Springfield's tenure in Memphis coated in bong resin, Dr. John's gris-gris mixed with some potent cough syrup, or even the Band's hearty embrace of Americana tempered with late night camp outs under the stars, Brightblack Morning Light is one gorgeous sigh after another."

"Authenticity is the big issue at the heart of Motion To Rejoin, coming in the form of the soul, blues, gospel music and the southern sounds that have surrounded this duo and their Alabama roots. Apparently they don’t dig overly postured appropriation, and it shows in their shamanic channeling of southern vibes, making it into something sincere and truly their own.

Backlit by those Doorsy muted 70s keyboard noodles, wafty woodwinds, layers and layers of hazy vocals, reverberant and spacious, Motion To Rejoin burns slow from start to finish. Straight away on 'Hologram Buffalo' it’s all slow-motion chords and blissed-out harmonies. In a way, the title of that track encapsulates their sound; slightly resistant to modernization but set firmly in the now.

The stoned, rolling nature of this stuff means it has the tendency to drop into the background but this is a virtue rather than a weakness. Yes, it’s 'mood' music but it’s unclear whether it’s purpose-built to be wafting through from the other room in a house with all the doors open. That’s not to say that it’s a boring record. Yes, the style and the evocative mood that positively drips from this record are perhaps its most obvious elements but the spirit that underlies these sweltering ballads is massive. And when you’re this good at dwelling on the middle bits, why not embrace it? You’ll get lost in this. A record that will not only change the temperature but your spirit, too."

Thursday, November 20, 2008

As the weather gets nastier and winter is inevitably putting me in a shitty mood to go along with all this crap I have to deal with regardless, I figured a list of ugly bad mood music might do the trick. Great for a case of the mondays, general anger, etc.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

"Les Rallizes Dénudés (裸のラリーズ, Hadaka no Rallizes) are an influential, yet reclusive Japanese psychedelic noise band. They were formed in 1967, and the band was known for their ties to avant-garde theater groups (as typified by Shuji Terayama's troupe) and leftist political groups, as well as for their feedback-drenched live shows and use of strobe lights and mirror balls onstage, which earned them comparisons to the Velvet Underground. Most of their albums that have been released are in very limited editions.

In 1970, the original bass player Moriaki Wakabayashi was involved in the hijacking of Japan Airlines Flight 351 orchestrated by the Japanese Red Army. Singer Takashi Mizutani was allegedly offered a role in the hijacking but turned it down.

Heavier Than a Death In The Family is a collection of live tracks at the height of their career. Copies of this album are rare, very high priced and of course, long out of print."

"They took their name from Kabe's love of sniffing Marusan Pro Band glue and Joey Smith's obsession with amphetamines, as evidenced by the lyrics of many Speed, Glue & Shinki songs (all lyrics being written and sung by Smith). The resulting sound was extremely bleak and raw, with Kabe's crunching atonal bass runs and Smith's stop-start rhythms creating a unique foundation for Shinki Chen's euphoric blues. Song titles such as 'Stoned Out of My Mind', 'Mr Walking Drugstore Man' and 'Sniffing and Snorting', combined with Smith's dangerous outlaw lyrics and caustic Iggy Pop-like vocal asides, gave the band an edge that no other Japanese band could (or would have wished to) achieve."Sniff that shit

Flower Travellin' Band-Satori

"Satori is a conceptual hard rock-psych album driven by Hideki Ishima's furious guitar licks which erupt and explode over the harmonic heart beat of the drums and bass and Yamanaka's banshee-like vocal style which was turning him into an occidental Iggy Pop or Ozzy Osbourne while the band itself was rapidly becoming Japan's answer to Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. Satori is a huge album in every way. From power chords to Eastern-tinged North African six string freak-outs and crashing tom-toms, the band flexes its collective muscle from start to finish. In short, this is a real rock classic of the type they simply don't make any more."Travel on

I will post plenty more of this awesome stuff, Japrock is fucking nasty. Make sure to check out Akira Ishikawa and Count Buffalo as well right here for another example of some bad ass Psych.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Essential Psych/Shoegaze/Etc. from the late 80's. It's hard to find good reviews for an album from 20 years ago so if you guys aren't familiar with them, you might just have to take my word for it. This is definitely one of the best Psych albums since it were released and probably before that too. Also, if you like the Brian Jonestown Massacre especially and don't know these guys, you need them. Did I mention that it's incredible drug music? Happy listening.

Friday, November 7, 2008

"Larkin Grimm is another find by Swans/Angels of Light/Young Gods records main man Michael Gira. ‘Parplar’ is her third album after a pair for the Secret Eye label that stretch out the folk music idiom to bleak and unusual places.

Unlike Akron/Family and Devendra Banhart, Gira’s other notable discoveries, but much like the man himself, Grimm’s motivating spirit comes from a dark, strange place.

Sometimes morose, sometimes jovial, the music is heavily repetitious, as are the lyrics, but the effect is more meditative than tedious. It owes a heavy debt to the ‘old weird America” documented on Harry Smith’s 'Anthology of American Music'. In addition to Grimm’s own fingerpicking, a host of Brooklyn musicians help out, including some of Angels of Light and Old Time Relijun.

Grimm stakes out a fair piece of her ground on the first two numbers.

As ‘Parplar’ begins, Grimm stretches out the question "Who told you you’re going to be all right?" to a slow crawl over a descending three-note riff, while mournful violins stretch out below her bitter intonation of the song’s title: "They were wrong."

The brisk gallop of ‘Ride That Cyclone’ lures the listener in with a more upbeat tone, drawing to a small degree on the bounce of Balkan brass music, but it’s a rough ride, with broken bones lurking in the lyrics.

Sometimes the sound is peculiarly twee and lo-fi, as on the high-pitched sing-song of ‘Mina Minou’, on other occasions it’s lushly accented with cello and backing vocals as on ‘Durge’.

Grimm keeps the album together with her steely voice – in an era dominated by warbling songbirds, Grimm almost always keeps dead steady, though she does allow it to waver a bit while regaling a lost lover with the wish that he’s “suffering and lost” in the final track, ‘Hope for the Hopeless’.

It’s a peculiarly enchanting album which offers one of the most successful updates of ‘old-timey music’ on offer today."

Zoltar

Welcome Minions!

Here you will find an assortment of wonderful music for sampling purposes. It is a joy to help people discover bands so anything goes. Recommendations? Requests? Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop me a line. Please refer to the other blogs as well, many of them are absolute treasure chests. If you enjoy what you find here, please click an ad. Happy perusing and listening.